Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Oh, this is just a Hoot. Our own Raul Grijalva is all sticking out his chest that he got to put in a Democratic response to a USA Today editorial, La dee da, our Congressman must have worked half the night spell-checking this one. It is short, so I will refute our esteemed representative line for line.Republicans don’t want middle ground; they want to kill reform.

Reforming health care in this country is an urgent matter. For decades, we have endured a broken system that restricts and denies coverage when individuals need it most, leaving many of us one illness away from bankruptcy.Government provided healthcare does not deny coverage of the poor. The real issue is health care costs, not insurance. Grijalva and the Democrats don't even address the skyrocketing costs of insurance because of lawsuits, let alone the costs of treatment, which is why their bill is estimated to cost 10 trillion dollars in the first 10 years (adding to the new estimate of 10 trillion this year).I am open to bipartisanship on legislation when it yields action and solutions. However, I am not in favor of bipartisanship when the other side's principal intention is to delay progress and undermine a bill.This is a flat out lie. Grijalva has never been in favor of bipartisanship. he is the furthest left of any representative in Washington. He has never coauthored a bill with a Republican or attached his name to one. Furthermore, I see nowhere that Republicans are attempting to undermine HR3200. Republicans are listening to their constituents, holding townhalls in large venues, offering alternative plans that are based on valid research data. but Republicans are no where to be seen on this bill. The Democrats problem is within their own party members who are afraid of public reaction if they create another government monstrosity by taking over healthcare.Let's call it like it is. Most of what the Republicans want in the health care reform bill represents a victory for well-financed, private-interest greed. It's a gift to corporations, not consumers.Nothing could be further from the truth. Right now Health Care corporations and drug companies are drooling over the steady profits promised to them by the Obama administration. Republicans can't get them on the phone because these companies know where the money is coming from in this bill, it will be coming from the Health Czar or whatever he/she is called (God forbid Kathleen Sibelius gets the nod if this thing passes).Moreover, introducing ideas that do not improve health care for the American people holds up the reform process. This, too, is an underhanded tactic. Delaying the process is not about making a better bill; it is about killing health care reform.Again this statement is full of rhetoric and disinformation, something Americans are sick of and mad about. Health care for American people is the best in the world. Grijalva's public option would destroy it according to every single expert I can find. Republican ideas are focused on reducing costs through private competition as opposed to artificially reducing costs by having taxpayers foot the bill. Bad legislation deserves to be delayedand this bill, despite all the rhetoric Grijalva and the Democrats have tried to mount, is bad legislation because of the single payer/public option.The basic principle of any bipartisan deal must be to ensure that health care is about the individual, not the corporation. We can achieve this through a public option.Then why did the Obama administration only listen to corporations and radical theorists when designing this bill and why are the poo-pooing the public as "all wee-weed up" when they have reservations about it? Recent polls indicate 53% of Americans want to start over on health are reform without the public option. Republican support is obviously irrelevant, how is pushing this bill through without public support for a public option about anyone but the liberal agenda behind it?Thus far, Republicans have refused to look at the public option through a bipartisan lens. Instead of giving it a solid evaluation, they have waged a war of words in an attempt to discredit something they do not seem to fully understand.Again, I have not heard loud boisterous Republican congressional leaders speaking out. If they are, no one is listening. Grijalva shouted down his town hall participants as "uncivil birthers." who is waging a war of words to discredit what they don't understand. Dwight Eisenhower said it well: "Every step we take towards making the State our Caretaker of our lives, by that much we move toward making the State our Master."For example, this month the Republican attacks on the public option have been rife with doublespeak. In one breath, we hear that "the government can't do anything right" while, in the next breath, we hear that "the government would run a public option so well and so inexpensively that it would knock out competition." Which is it?Both. Medicare and the VA are two examples of the effect of government-run healthcare or "public option." Prices are set by Medicare for procedures, so doctors increase rates to private payers to cover costs. People on private plans have to pay more while taxpayers are stuck with the bill for a bankrupt Medicare system. At the VA, to keep costs down, veterans must wait weeks to see a physician with limited treatments. A public option would cut competition by fixing prices which the program couldn't afford until it became a primarily single payer program where costs could be controlled by limiting benefits. Raul knows that single payer is the ultimate goal, so why the rhetoric about "doublespeak" when he knows the only way to pay for a public option is going to single payer or socialized medicine?The public option that so many of my colleagues and I support is not the downfall of health care, as Republicans would have you believe. Rather, it is what will end the insurance companies' monopoly and control over our individual health.No it would merely make them dependent on the government for funding. More rhetoric; a monopoly is when one company controls the means of production or limits access. Insurance companies do neither, they are simply trying to make money, and they don't make that much. The costs of Health care is the root of the problem and the solution requires tort reform and increased competition, neither of which the Democrats are willing to address because. . . well their Democrats and Democrats are lawyers and community organizers: competition and tort reform bad, government good.The public option is one of the choices that individuals would have as consumers of health insurance. Furthermore, studies have found it to be cost effective for all taxpayers, as it would lower the cost of subsidies while preserving private coverage for most people.Notice Grijalva doesn't cite these studies--because they do not exist. However, numerous examples and studies exist of how the public option would double costs and limit competition. Notice Grijalva says it would preserve private coverage for most people. A recent study by the Heritage Foundation predicts 40% of private companies would drop their insurance if a cheaper public option was available.Again Grijalva is drawing his logic out of thin air.The Republican agenda is to stop health care reform and, specifically, the public option; the Trojan horse of malpractice and frivolous litigation is part of that strategy.No, the trojan horse is the public option. 100 liberal congressmen have threatened to derail the bill without it, not because it is good policy, but because it will lead to single payer or socialized medicine, giving government complete control control of healthcare.Grijalva doesn't want to hear how much health care will cost because he is convinced that eventually a single-payer socialized health care system with limited benefits will bring down costs. It will do that, but you won't be keeping your doctor because he/she may move to a country where competition is encouraged and their expertise is valued.

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Just a concerned Arizonan

Who am I? Like yourself, I am a concerned citizen who is sick of elected officials who's only concern is their own political future. In 1994 I moved to southern Arizona to work and live because of the large number of jobs being created in this fabulous state. Like most Arizonans I value the freedom of economic opportunity that this state is known for and that has helped us to thrive. Unfortunately, many politicians, having passed themselves off as sharing these values, now promote a socialistic agenda, wanting to spend the wealth that Arizonan's create on large government and programs that stifle creativity and initiative. I wish to be a voice in opposition to these charlatans. Enjoy my blog.